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I believe Mr. Murphy

Wednesday, July 24, 2019 - 16:02

To the Editor:

In last week’s Enterprise, there is a letter from David Murphy [“Scaffolding on my property and derelict building remains for over two years”] regarding a building owned by Shaw Funding/Vasilios Lefkaditis next to his house in Staten Island.

In an accompanying story [“Violations at vacant building, owned by Knox supervisor’s company, worry neighbor”] it states in part, “But he also said that Lefkaditis contacted him, asking to rescind the letter to the Enterprise editor. Lefkaditis denies that he asked Murphy to do this.”

When Lefkaditis was running for Knox town supervisor, I sent a brief letter to the editor that was critical of the former supervisor, Mike Hammond, and former town attorney, John Dorfman.

Lefkaditis asked me to recall this letter, added a number of things about his political enemies to it, sent it back to me and I (to my eternal regret), sent it back to The Enterprise under my name [“Maybe it’s time for some fresh leadership in Knox”].

When asked by The Enterprise about this, Lefkaditis said he “cleaned up” my letter at my request.

Not true.

Lefkaditis also had said the annual reports to the comptroller’s office were filed when they weren't.

This is only a couple of examples of how Lefkaditis has not been truthful in how he deals with things.

I don’t know Mr. Murphy, but when he says Lefkaditis asked him to rescind the letter he sent, judging by Lefkaditis’s history, my tendency is to believe Mr. Murphy.

Vince Virano

Albany

Editor’s note: In 2016, we reviewed the original election letter sent to the The Enterprise by Vince Virano in the fall of 2015 and compared it with the one that was actually printed; the printed letter was more than double the length of the original (over 500 words as compared to fewer than 200) and introduced much new material. The original letter focused on the town’s attorney speaking for the board; the rewritten letter was also critical of town board members at the time, particularly Nicholas Viscio’s comments in an Enterprise interview, and Amy Pokorny’s letter to the Enterprise editor.

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